Tannery Wedding; You can tell it’s going to be a beautiful day when the day starts off so full of energy and fun!

Bride and Bridesmaids Wedding Preparations – Woolston

Rowena and her bridesmaids had spent the night before the wedding at the holiday rental where they got ready. When we arrived the bridesmaids had gone out for a coffee run – that’s a sure sign of a good Bridesmaid!

It was cool watching the girls get ready, I remember a couple of times the hairdresser asking the bridesmaids if they were happy with the hair, and each time they’d check with Rowena that she was happy with it, all they cared about was the Rowena was happy! They made it Row’s day!

Groom and Groomsmen getting ready – Merivale

The boys met for a relaxing brunch in the morning – I then met them at home after that. I walked into the house, and there was a variety of things going on, one was ironing his shirt, one was polishing his shoes, and Dan was even playing the guitar.

Dan gave the groomsmen a class in how to get their pocket squares just right.

They had a balcony off the lounge, just the perfect spot for some shots once they were all dressed.

Wedding Ceremony St Mary’s Heathcote

Dan and Row got married at St Mary’s in Heathcote – such a cute intimate wee church.

These guys had some fresh ideas. Instead of traditional flowers, they had spent hours upon hours hand making origami flowers for the bouquets, button holes and all table decorations at the Reception. They even made the tiny flowers for the girl’s hair. I can’t even imagine how many hours it took to make them all, but they looked amazing!!

At the beginning of the ceremony they also really wanted all of the guests to be involved, so they sang a song. I remember when we met with them at the pre-wedding shoot a couple of months before. They were struggling to come up with ideas for what song to sing, and I think they made the best choice ever.

The Song ‘life’s a happy song’ from the Muppets movie was the final song choice. So with Eddie & Dave (groomsmen) playing guitar and mandolin (that we have since learnt that he made himself, that’s some crazy talent!), the whole crowd got involved, and it was so cool to see. We had the song in our head for days, a pretty cool song to get stuck in your head.

Bridal Party Photos – Port Hills

We took the bridal party in the Kombi van up to the Port Hills – Dan spent a lot of time up there on his bike and wanted to share that with Row on their special day.

This particular part of the port hills was just fantastic; it gave us views back over the city, and also views down into the Littleton harbour as well, couldn’t have asked for anything better.

We knew from the moment we met these two months and months ago that they were going to be a lot of fun to work with, and they lived up to that.

Reception – The Tannery Wedding Venue

Row and Dan had their reception at The Tannery; this was the first wedding we had done at the Tannery – it was truly spectacular and matched both of their personalities.

The crew that set the venue up do such a fantastic job and in such a short time frame. The shops close at 5 pm, so set up cannot start until after that, and they have it ready for guests to come in at 6.30pm.

I know I say it a lot, but I love speeches they bring out not just the lovely but also the funny side of people, and you learn even more about the bride and groom.

These two are swing dancers, so you can only imagine what the first dance was like, I could’ve watched just the two of them dancing for hours, it’s such a fresh style of dance!

The weather for the whole day was the best you ask for, but nothing beats what we got at the end of the day. As we arrived at the reception venue, it started to rain a little (perfect timing we know), then during the reception out came this magical double rainbow only to be followed by the most surreal sunset! It was a fantastic end to an awesome day!